83 serving our community 1930 to 2013
Retirement & Assisted Living Services
SPORTS
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CUISINE
KELOWNA FALCONS head coach Geoff White is optimistic about the West Coast League baseball season ahead.
DEVOTED Red Cross volunteer honoured for her 30 years of dedicated service to the agency.
JUDE’S KITCHEN says a class in Indian cooking for couples can be great fun and you learn how to cook some fabulous food.
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295 Gerstmar Road | Kelowna 250.979.0600
TUESDAY June 4 2013 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
Police initiative targets car theft victims
▼ INFESTATION
Jennifer Smith
It would appear that the worst of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the Central Okanagan is over, although the devastating pests are not completely gone. Blair Stewart, with urban forestry for the City of Kelowna, says he’s hopeful that all the city’s efforts to clean up trees before the first flight of beetles every year has helped to ease the pressure locally from the province-wide epidemic. The province’s forest health technician in this area for the ministry of forest operations, Heather Rice, agrees that generally, the mountain pine beetle has moved through the Central Okanagan and is moving into new stands of pines in the south this year. “The epidemic wasn’t as bad in the Okanagan as was predicted,” Rice commented. “As it was building (in the north of the province) the thinking was that we could lose 80 per cent of Mountain pine beetle our pine, but less than 50 larvae per cent has been lost.” It is now moving away from stands which have been attacked by the beetle, and into new stands to the south. Northern B.C. has been devastated by the epidemic, in part because of the largely even-aged, all-pine stands in the northern part of the province, while here most stands are mixed fir and pine with some spruce. As it turns out, Rice said there will be some pine trees left in our mixed stands, and beetle populations are no longer building up here. MPB is a native pest that naturally cycles throughout the province, but because of a series of factors, including milder winters, drought and fire-stressed trees, vast areas of aging pine trees that are vulnerable to attack and man’s suppression of wildfire.
Beetle attack retreating in Central Okanagan Judie Steeves STAFF REPORTER
STAFF REPORTER
The Kelowna RCMP are asking drivers to lock up their cars to prevent crimes of opportunity to save themselves thousands and police even more. Throughout the Central Okanagan, police are seeing everything from iPads to expensive electronics, wallets and purses left totally unprotected in unlocked vehicles—and this carelessness is fuelling a lucrative industry. More than 1,800 vehicles in the area had items stolen in 2012, largely because these belongings were easy pickings. “At least 70 per cent of target vehicles are unlocked…but we’ve seen it as high was 85 per cent,” said Const. Kris Clark, Kelowna RCMP spokesperson. The culprits are often youth and they’re often drug-addicted, said Clark. But it isn’t the perpetrators so much as the victims police are after. Starting Monday, auxiliary officers will head to hot spots for this sort of crime—beaches and parks—to flag vehicles
FAMILY FUN DAY…
Lucas and Dylan McDougall assembled their own Doodah bird at the Capital News booth (above) and displayed the results of the coloured sand mixing efforts at the annual YMCA Healthy Kids Day—four hours of free family entertainment and more than 30 activity stations and free healthy snacks hosted by the Kelowna Family Y facility on Hartman Road in Rutland last Sunday. For more photos see page A8.
BARRY GERDING/CAPITAL NEWS
See Beetles A6
See Targets A6
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